HITCHING POST Producer David Gest is throwing two big bashes for Liza Minnelli in March. One is a televised tribute to the performer. The other is the couple's wedding. Their marriage on March 2 will be the fourth walk down the aisle for the 55-year-old Minnelli, the first for Gest. Minnelli met Gest at September's Michael Jackson tribute at New York's Madison Square Garden (which aired as a top-rated CBS sweeps special this month), which Gest produced and at which Minnelli performed. Jackson will return the favor and dance with Minnelli on the March special, which Gest had already signed on to produce before the couple got engaged. ''I am the happiest I've ever been,'' she said in a statement. ''Everything I've been through was worth it to find David.''
PASSING NOTES Gardner McKay, who was at work on his memoirs when he died of prostate cancer at 69 last Wednesday, wanted to be remembered for his sucesses as a playwright (''Sea Marks'') and novelist (the 1999 psychological thriller ''Toyer''). But McKay, who died at his Honolulu home, will probably be best remembered as the David Hasselhoff of his day, having starred as Adam Troy, the buff captain of a South Pacific schooner in the TV series ''Adventures in Paradise'' from 1959 to 1962....
Melanie Thornton, who, as one half of the mid-'90s dance-pop duo La Bouche, sang such hits as ''Be My Lover'' and ''Sweet Dreams,'' died Saturday in a plane crash near Zurich, Switzerland. Thornton, 33, left the group in 2000 and was touring to promote her new solo album, ''Ready to Fly,'' and its single, ''Wonderful Dream.'' She and 23 others among the 33 passengers aboard the Crossair jet are presumed dead after the flight from Berlin crashed in the forest outside Zurich....
Juan Hinojosa, drummer and founding member of the Tejano band Los Fabulosos Cuatro, died at 51 in a car crash outside Corpus Christi, Tex., on Friday. Also killed in the crash was his 28-year-old son, Michael Hinojosa, also a drummer. Driving in dense fog, another vehicle allegedly ran a stop sign and struck the Hinojosa's car on a rural road. Los Fabulosos Cuatro, who'd played together for nearly 40 years and released such acclaimed albums in the early '90s as ''Simply Fabulous,'' were known for their intricate and influential arrangements. They were inducted into the Tejano Roots Hall of Fame in 2000.
